Jury: Ferndale pot advocate guilty of violating election law

Andrew Cissell gathered the petition signatures that led to Ferndale voters decriminalizing marijuana last November, but prosecutors convinced a jury he violated the law when he falsely claimed he lived in the city at his father’s house.

“If you try to change the law in Ferndale you have to follow the rules,” Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Jason Pernick told jurors in his final argument at Cissell’s trial before Hazel Park 43rd District Judge Charles Goedert. “He was playing fast and loose with the rules … he wasn’t a resident of Ferndale.”

A jury, after tense deliberations and a period of deadlock, convicted Cissell on Tuesday of providing a false address on petitions he collected, a 93-day misdemeanor.

Cissell and his attorney Lisa Dwyer said he was targeted by anti-marijuana Oakland County law enforcement officials after he turned his pot decriminalization petitions in at Ferndale City Hall last July.

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“This case has to do with a politically charged (issue) of medical marijuana,” Dwyer told jurors.

The marijuana decriminalization law in Ferndale won’t be affected by the outcome of Cissell’s legal troubles.

The voter law Cissell violated is a Ferndale City Charter requirement that anyone initiating a petition drive has to legally reside in the city.

Cissell, 25, is a medical marijuana patient and caregiver for several other patients. County sheriff’s Narcotic Enforcement Team agents raided a house Cissell owns in Oak Park in September and said they found two safes, several pounds of marijuana and 47 marijuana plants.

That raid happened after an informant contacted NET agents in August and offered to set Cissell up for illegal pot sales. The informant later testified he was looking for some extra money and better terms for his probation requirements. Cissell still faces trial in the case in Oakland County Circuit Court on five counts of illegal delivery and manufacture of marijuana.

Cissell’s petition drive was part of a statewide effort by a group called the Safer Michigan Coalition that also passed pot decriminalization proposals Nov. 5 in Lansing and Jackson.

The charge of making a false statement about his legal address on the petitions he submitted in Ferndale came up after his house in Oak Park was raided.

Police said at the time it appeared Cissell was living in Oak Park, not at his father’s house in Ferndale as he claimed.

The suspect’s father, John Cissell, testified Friday that his son had not lived with him in Ferndale in two or three years.

Andrew Cissell testified Monday that he lived at several addresses, including another in Ferndale, the house he owned in Oak Park, another house in Oak Park and his girlfriend’s place in Detroit.

“I feel I’m being persecuted for something 70 percent of (Ferndale voters) approved,” Cissell said at one point under questioning from Pernick.

Pernick told jurors that they should not be swayed by unsubstantiated assertions Cissell or his lawyer made.

“The defense claims there is some kind of political witch hunt but what facts are there?” Pernick said, “None.”

Cissell is scheduled to be sentenced at noon April 8 before Judge Goedert.